helped Toledo's Corpus Christi University Parish celebrate the 10th anniversary of the dedication of the building by giving a talk Tuesday night entitled, "The Seduction of the Sacred."

"I wanted to be a little provocative," Father O'Donovan said of the lecture title, which refers to the way humans are "drawn to the holy mystery" by images of the world, and also how created images help humans discover God.

The focus of art is often on the beauty of form, color, and harmony, but "what may at first seem repellent, or even repugnant" can serve a purpose, he said.

"An art of protest has used distortion and intentional ugliness to awaken viewers to the suffering and injustice around them," Father O'Donovan said.

Link (here) to the full article entitled, Scholar beholds value of ugliness.

An international conference to be held at Dublin's Milltown Institute on Friday and Saturday of this week will reflect on one of the most significant ecclesial movements and social forces of the 20th century.

In Latin America at the time, poverty, malnutrition, lack of housing, unemployment, non- existent health services, the very extent of human suffering across many different cultures, nations and societies fuelled the rapid growth of Liberation Theology.

Although a vast number of writers and activists in both Catholic and Protestant traditions shared in the construction of this new theology, four theologians in particular were influential, even beyond Latin America.

After the Medellin synod, Peruvian Gustavo Gutierrez published A Theology of Liberation which canonised the Liberation Theology label. Gutierrez called attention to the poor of Latin America and challenged the Church to help change the economic and political systems that fostered social injustice.

Brazilian Franciscan Leonardo Boff developed methods of liberation while the work of Jon Sobrino, a Basque Jesuit teaching in El Salvador, also gained international prominence.

In 1989 he escaped right-wing death squads which claimed the lives of six Jesuits at their university campus.

The movement gained strength under outspoken Church leaders such as El Salvador's Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was killed in 1980.

For all its dynamism, though, and unlike the international human rights movement which has established itself as the benchmark of civilised nations, Liberation Theology had run aground by the 1990s, due in part to criticisms by governments and by the Vatican.

Disturbed by what it considered Marxist overtones of class struggle, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), under the current pope, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, issued two cautionary documents.

The accusations that have beset the Liberation movement are also those which challenge the wider Catholic social agenda: to seek a balance between collectivism and individualism and defend the rights of the poor, while accepting the reality of the dominant global capitalist system.

Outside of Latin America, it has been argued that the South African Kairos Document(1985) and the anti-apartheid struggle were inspired by Liberation Theology, but it is not clear how wide its influence spread.

In Asia too, theologians acknowledge the debt owed to the movement started at Medellin.

A keynote speaker at this week's Dublin conference will be influential Asian theologian Peter Phan whose work has also caught the attention of Rome's CDF.

He criticises the dehumanising poverty that continues to crush immense masses in Asia and asks: "How can Christianity help Asian people to become subjects of their future and facilitate their struggle for liberation in the aftermath of oppression, economic exploitation and a communist regime?"

While it began 40 years ago in the heady days of Medellin, it is now clear that Liberation Theology has morphed into several different movements all over the world - Black, African, Womanist and Feminist, to name but a few.

As Jon Sobrino, who has more than 40 years of experience of working with the poor in El Salvador, put it: "As long as there is oppression there is need of a utopia - a dream of God."

Between the anti-Bush greeting cards in the bookstore, the Obama flyers decorating the student plaza and the Bush-as-a-monkey printout taped up in the scene shop, it’s pretty clear where the political loyalties of most of our college’s population lie. But during this hotly contested Election 2008, we must not forget the Republicans in our midst - supporters of John McCain instead of Hillary or Barack. They’re the Few but Proud - the Republicans of Fordham College at Lincoln Center.

There is a longstanding College Democrats Club here on campus, but we’ve never had a College Republicans Club that lasted very long. In fact, when FCLC conservatives, in preparation for this historic election year, tried to gather support for a College Republicans Club, their efforts failed. This was in part because they just couldn’t get the required sixty signatures on their petition - liberal students weren’t very interested in helping the conservative cause, and there weren’t enough conservative students who wanted to publicly express their Republican politics.

Artur Jagielski, FCLC ‘09, who helped spearhead the movement to form a College Republicans Club at FCLC, said that the process was difficult because of “some of the criticism I received from several people [Democrats]. I’m sure there are more Republicans on this campus who don’t voice their opinion, and if we could reach out to them, maybe we could form a club here on campus.”

But who is it that’s really making the Republicans feel unwelcome at Fordham? It’s got to be the students, right? Everyone knows how hot-headed and opinionated college students can be. Actually, conservative students say that it’s not their peers who are the problem. It’s the people you’d expect to have a more reasoned approach: the professors.

While both the faculty and the student body are filled with Democratic supporters, Jagielski and Republican recent grad Howie Ray, FCLC ‘06, assert that while professors are very narrow-minded, fellow students seem open to debate. “I found a lot of the student body was open to intelligent political discourse,” pointed out Ray. Jagielski says that liberal politics aren’t even much discussed among students: “… I don’t hear much talk about it [liberal politics] outside of the classroom. All I see is pro-Obama posters here and there.”

Monday, September 29, 2008

The mighty and courageous Jesuit order has produced St. Francis Xavier, St. Jean de Brebeuf and the other seven first Canadian martyrs. They were once renowned for their complete loyalty to the Pope. The Jesuits also produced Teilhard de Chardin, a heretic whose work was condemned by Popes and his own order. He was involved in a paleontology fraud of Peking Man and of a similar fraud in Great Britain.

His theology has greatly helped to empty convents and seminaries all over the world.

He was a pantheist and a gnostic more than a Christian, but mostly his all embracing religion and passion was evolution. Man is evolving spiritually and Jesus is just on the road. Surely after the evidence of the last fifty years no one can believe that we are evolving spiritually unless our goal is to be more like the prince of darkness.

Our third to the last stop is my favorite, the old Immaculate Conception Church otherwise known as the Baclayon Church. I've always been fascinated by old churches and is actually planning to travel and take photos of the numerous beautiful churches here in the Philippines. I've already started last summer and will continue to pursue it in the coming months.

The Baclayon Church is the oldest church and the first symbol of Christianity in Bohol built in 1596 by the Jesuits.

Aside from its rich history, the church is also known for the miraculous appearance of the image of a Jesuit priest in one of the cobblestone walls. The image cannot be seen clearly by the naked eye but check the camera viewer and you would be able to see the Jesuit father.

For showbiz watchers, Baclayon is also known as the hometown of Cesar Montano (future gubernatorial candidate?). Link (here)

Prop. 102 opponent the Rev. Frank Bergen, who has served as a priest in both the Roman Catholic Jesuit order and the Episcopal Church, said some people think everybody "should be bound by our religious concept of marriage." "Uh, uh; not so," he said. He said his objection to Prop. 102 is actually rooted in religion. "Proposition 102 offends my sense of justice, and my sense of justice comes right out of my religious faith," Bergen said.Link (here)

The Creighton Blue Jays, the champions of the Missouri Valley Conference, are alive in the NCAA tournament after their dramatic double overtime buzzer three point shot that defeated Florida and put Creighton in today's second round. Nearly 20 years ago, that Jesuit school was at the epicenter of the most basic issue for a scholarship athlete, illiteracy. Since that time, the NCAA has instituted requirements on SAT scores and core curricula for incoming freshmen; yet, the U.S. Department of Education says the problem of illiteracy among youngsters is increasing so that the story of Kevin Ross may be less history than a cautionary tale for the future;

Author George Riemer(The New Jesuits) studied as a Jesuit for only seven years in the 1940s, but he continued to think of himself as a Jesuit until his death from cancer two weeks ago. "When I'm confronted with my own death," he said a few days before he died, "I believe I'm still a Jesuit, because the core of the Jesuit is still the Spiritual Exercises."

In 1572, the first Jesuit priests arrived in Mexico City where they established the Colegio Maximo of San Pedro and San Pablo some sixty years before Harvard University opened its doors. During the seventeenth century these priests moved northward from Mexico City in two columns, one on the west and one on the east side of the Sierra Madre Mountains of Northern Mexico. They gathered the natives in pueblos, taught them farming and stock-raising and tried their best to protect them from the exploitation of the Spanish civilians who wanted their labor in the mines and elsewhere. These priests acted as explorers, map-makers, historians and learned the native languages.

The best known Jesuit missionary in Sonora was Father Eusebio Kino, who established many mission churches and explored widely through northern Sonora and southern Arizona. (The town of Magdalena de Kino, just southwest of Cananea, is the final resting place of Father Kino. After his grave was discovered there in 1966. a 15-acre memorial plaza was constructed including a museum and a library.)

Father T. Frank Kennedy is a Jesuit musician and scholar who has found actual scores of music composed for Jesuit schools in the 17th and 18th centuries, and then produced some of these very early examples of Baroque music. Composers who worked for the Jesuits includeGiovanni Pierluigi daPalestrina,Marc-Antoine Charpantier and William Byrd. Kennedy teaches at Boston College which has also begun a new Monumenta Musicae Societatis Iesu to make this recovered music more accessible.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Now that the church and the order are trying to understand and learn from the world, many Jesuits are disoriented, looking in vain for the old landmarks: the triumphalist faith, the proud discipline. The tight old Jesuit houses offer little solace. Deserted by the young and the adventurous in favor of small communal residences or private apartments, many of the houses have become sadly depopulated. Too many Jesuits no longer seem to be able to recognize one another.

"Ten years ago when you met a fellow Jesuit, you knew that he was a brother and that his experiences and thoughts would be like yours. Now when you meet a Jesuit for the first time, it's like the mating dance of the crabs−trying to find out if the other crab is male or female."

There are Jesuits young and old all across the spectrum of opinion. Observed Catholic Journalist John Cogley in an accurate bit of doggerel in the Jesuit weekly America:

"There are Jesuits left and Jesuits right/ A pro and con for most any fight/ So wherever you stand, you stand not alone:/ Every little movement has a Jebbie of its own."

It is an odd position, almost a public embarrassment, for an order of such traditional rigidity−"the long black line"−to play out its differences before the world. Older Jesuits feel lost in a dangerous indiscipline; the younger members sense themselves on a ragged edge of change.

"My film The Devils (1971) may have been banned by any number of local councils and all over the world but it was not banned, for example, by the Jesuit Loyola University in Chicago, where it is taught on a film studies course."

Movie Plot:The Devils is the story of an unorthodox (and very sexually active) Jesuit-trained priest, Urbain Grandier (Oliver Reed), whose parish was in the town of Loudun, France in 1634. Arrogant and proud to a fault, Grandier made many powerful enemies—something that came home to roost because of his political activities. Grandier dared to stand up to the political machinations of Cardinal Richelieu (Christopher Logue), whose vision of a united France (with himself as the power behind the throne) was hampered by Grandier standing in his way concerning tearing down the walls that encircled Loudun. That Louis XIII (Graham Armitage) had pledged not to touch the city guaranteed Grandier’s power—for a time.

What Grandier had not counted on were the ravings of a se...ally repressed nun, Sr. Jeanne of the Angels (Vanessa Redgrave), who accused the priest of deb..ching her and several other members of the convent she headed up by means of black magic. Richelieu immediately seized on these allegations and used them to destroy Grandier, finally having him burnt at the stake as a sor.eror. ........The film did have its supporters, chief among them Time movie critic Jay Cocks.

A vague adherence to Christianity can also be combined with a culture that is hedonist, consumerist, and competitive to the point of violence. Many believing Christians find their faith called into question or undermined by a social atmosphere that endorses values quite opposed to those of Christ and the gospel. The inherent logic of contemporary western culture, in many of its post-modern features, threatens both to enfeeble the churches and to erode the religious heritage of the nation. These developments are a present danger both to the vigor of Christian faith and to civic virtue as we have known it.

The devil never rests. His only respite is when he is dealing with a confirmed sinner. So long as there is a chance of weaning a soul from God’s service he is untiring in his glowing presentation of appealing reasons for being proud, envious, impure, disobedient and slothful in doing good. His strategems are unlimited. Our human intelligences without God’s solicited help are no match for his angelic brilliance.

Link (here) to his article entitled,Angels - in Heaven, on Earth and in Hell.

Juan Maria de Salvatierra (sal-vah-te-er'-rah), Italian missionary, born in Milan, 15 November, 1648; died in Guadalajara, Mexico, 18 July, 1717. He studied in the Jesuit college of Parma, entered that order in Genoa, and went to Mexico, where he studied theology, and was :for several years professor of rhetoric in the College of Puebla.

Later he obtained permission to convert the Tarahumaro Indians of the northwest, among whom he lived for ten years, founding several missions.

He was subsequently appointed visitor of the missions in Sinaloa and Sonora, and there formed a project for the spiritual conquest of California, as all the military expeditions to that country had been without result.

After obtaining permission from his superiors, he sailed on 10 October, 1697, for Lower California, where, on 19 October, he laid the .foundation of the mission of Loreto.

He soon learned the language of the natives, whom he propitiated by his kindness, and in seven years established six other missions along the coast. In 1704 he was appointed provincial of his order, and resided in Mexico, but when his term was concluded in 1707 he returned to his missions in California.

In 1717 he was called to the capital by the viceroy, the Marquis de Valero, to give material for the "History of California," which King Philip V. had ordered to be written.

Although suffering from illness, Salva-tierra obeyed, and, crossing the Gulf of California, continued his voyage along the coast, carried on the shoulders of the Indians, till he died in Guada-lajara. He wrote " Cartas sobre la Conquista espi-ritual de Californias" (Mexico, 1698), and "Nuevas cartas sobre Californias" (1699), which have been used by Father Miguel Venegas in his " Historia de Californias." Salvatierra is still known as the apostle of California.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Parishioners of St. Mary's Church (Loyola High School) in Jharkhand state found their church doors broken and consecrated hosts strewn about when they came for morning Mass on Sept. 24.

"What struck people was that the tabernacle was wide open, the ciborium missing and Holy Communion thrown around,"Jesuit Bishop Felix Toppo of Jamshedpur told UCA News on Sept. 24. His diocese is based in Jamshedpur, 1,300 kilometers southeast of New Delhi.

"The Christian community is very hurt as the Blessed Sacrament was desecrated," he said. The bishop conducted a purification rite on Sept. 24 and also led a Mass re-establishing the Blessed Sacrament in the church.

"We cannot deny the hands of communal forces in this incident," the bishop asserted, referring to recent attacks by Hindu fanatics against Christians and churches in Orissa state, eastern India, and Karnataka state in the south.Link (here) to the full storyMore (here)What is Hinduism? (here)

“While Fordham is strong, it faces a number of very large challenges,” he said. “These challenges are going to tax us. They will require hard work and creativity if we are to continue on the upward trajectory on which we have been for the last few years.”..... As of this past June 30, the endowment was approximately $469 million, down from its record $513 million one year ago.

Jesuits, avowedly and by direction, are deeply involved in the world’s affairs — and the greatest of them are mavericks. To someone of Fr. Cyril Barrett’s

catholic interests, impatience of convention and detestation of intellectual narrowness, Catholicism can be a hard master. Like many Jesuits down the centuries,

Barrett made no attempt to disguise his chafing at the Vatican’s hierarchical politics and social conservatism — going so far as to declare on the day of the attempted assassination of the Pope, in a bellow that filled a London restaurant, that “the only thing wrong with that bloody Turk was that he couldn’t shoot straight”.

The religious affairs correspondent of The Sunday Times, seated at a nearby table, turned beetroot.Link to the full article (here)More on Fr Cyril Barrett, S.J. (here)

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

In 1526 St. Ignatius of Loyola was arrested again and imprisoned for six weeks. Though pronounced innocent, he was forbidden to teach anything at all. So he left Alcalá for the university at Salamanca. Within two weeks of his arrival he was in prison again, bound foot to foot with other prisoners and fastened to a stake in the middle of the cell. Again, his text of the Spiritual Exercises was examined.

His credentials were more suspect than his doctrine.

Finally, he was set free and told he could preach, but could not discuss the difference between mortal and venial sin. So, in the winter of 1528, he left Spain, walked through "great and fearful wars," and arrived at the University of Paris.

"Giovanni LorenzoBernini in many ways was as close to to being a Jesuit as it is possible for a layman to be, and in a sense he took in his art the role of the instructor in the [Spiritual] Exercises.[writings to help one meditate on the life of Christ.] His creation of striking, colorful work was not merely his inclination but, he believed, his sacred obligation: it helped others, less gifted with imagination than he, to visualize and participate in the miracles of the Savior and the saints."

Father Juan Fonte established the first mission pueblo among the Tarahumara in 1611 and implemented the Jesuit policy of reducción, or reduction, designed to Christianize and “civilize” native peoples by bringing them into concentrated communities. Formerly, the Tarahumara lived in isolated homesteads dispersed throughout the wild mountains and canyons.

The Jesuits introduced the Tarahumara to irrigation, the plow, the axe, new crops and domesticated animals—advancements that radically altered their subsistence farming lifestyle.Link (here)

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Never conquered by the Aztecs and despite being defeated by Mexican armies, the Tarahumaras still consider themselves an independant nation. So strong is this conviction that in the Fifties they more than once took complaints directly to the United Nations. Perhaps the purest and most unmixed of any Indian tribe in Mexico, so little is known about them that their true name "Raramuri" was corrupted to "Tarahumara" by white men and never corrected.

Most of the world knows them only as long distance runners. Living in high altitudes, they have developed tremendous lung capacity and in more primitive times hunted deer and mountain goats, running them down on foot. In more modern times, they have run non-stop in relay teams from Chihuahua City to El Paso, a distance of 230 miles, to open the Pan-American Road Races.

However, this running ability is only one facet of their life style. The truly remarkable thing about them is an ancient religion which has bred into them a moral code so strict that they are unable to tell a lie.

Psychologists suggest that over the centuries this value system has actually caused physiological changes in their brain that preclude speaking anything but the truth. Nor can they cheat or fail to aid a fellow tribesman.

Luis G. Verplancken, a Jesuit priest who lived among them for many years and is probably the greatest authority on their history and culture, describes them as loyal to God, to their own traditions and their own culture. Although the majority of them have converted to Christianity, there are still some "gentile" groups who have refused baptism. Those converted have introduced their own ancient concepts into their new religion.

God is both Father and Mother. Respect for one another is of prime importance. They give greater value to persons than to things. In their eyes both the white man and the Mestizo are more pagan than their unbaptized fellow Raramuri because over the years these two groups have enslaved, lied, cheated and driven them off most of the fertile land they once inhabited.

Today the "People" (the translation of the name Raramuri) have been driven into the highest reaches of the Sierra Tarahumara, in the State of Chihuahua. There, even the valleys are over 5000 feet above sea level. Now, it appears their last bit of fertile land may be taken over by outsiders, forcing the Indians to retreat higher into the mountains.

Despite this, most Raramuri still ignore the blandishments of Mexican city living. They cling to native costume. The men wear a loin cloth, held together by a wool girdle wrapped twice around the waist. A long, loose, full sleeved shirt of cotton and a cloth head band complete the outfit. The women wear full multiple or layered skirts. Blouses are always worn loose at the waist. They have full sleeves, heavily pleated at the wrists and shoulders. Like the men, they wear cloth head-bands.

With some, however, western-style garb is making inroads and more and more, the colorful native dress is being worn only during festivals or in the more remote villages.

What has kept the "People" true to their ancient customs is a combination of a wilderness homeland and an inherited value system of obligation to fellow men, plus their devotion to ancient Gods they brought with them into Christianity.

The dispute concerning the existence and extent of gender-exclusivity in natural languages, the relation of such exclusivity to sexism, and the use of so-called inclusive language as a remedy for such exclusion has been heightened in recent years by controversy surrounding the use of inclusive language in translation. This is especially true for the translation of texts considered to be, in some sense, "common property": the works of ancient authors and other classics, traditional songs and carols, national documents of foundational stature, etc. In the case of new renderings of the Bible and of liturgical texts the passions of the disputants run particularly deep, for the obvious reason that all parties to the dispute recognize that more than sentiment or aesthetics is at stake.1

The purpose of this essay is fivefold: (1) to lay out the arguments of the adversaries in a clear light; (2) to demonstrate that only one of the rival accounts is tenable on linguistic grounds; (3) to elucidate the function of unmarked forms in general and their distribution in English in particular; (4) to examine the problems caused by the employment of inclusive-language devices in actual texts; and (5) to argue that the failure of such devices is inevitable, and not simply the failure of maladroit translators. The discussion necessarily centers on the use of inclusive language in English, itself a linguistically important fact. I shall principally use biblical and Roman Catholic liturgical texts to illustrate my remarks; however, with one exception, my arguments presume no specifically theological interests or allegiance, and the conclusions apply to translation generally.

There was an ordination ceremony this afternoon (20080920) at St. Ignatius Parish Church, next to Sophia University. Japan has only about half a million Catholics in a population of about 125 million; so it is extraordinary even if simply one Jesuit receives ordination per year. Miraculously, this year there were three Jesuits: a Japanese, an Indian, and an Indonesian.

The presiding bishop was Msgr Peter Okada Takeo of Tokyo. An unassuming, ascetic-looking bishop, he conducted the ceremnony with the required solemnity, as the choir of St. Ignatius Parish bathed the nearly 1,000 attendees in soothing music. About 50 priests concelebrated, including Fr. Sumita, the Jesuit Provincial of Japan; Fr. Karumathil, the Jesuit Provincial of Kerala; and several rectors, diocesan and religious priests of different orders. The gospel passage was Mk 16/14ff, calling on listeners to preach the gospel and baptize. The homily was surprisingly short, just about ten minutes, in which the bishop recalled the 188 Japanese martyrs who will be beatified soon and exhorted the newly ordained to live up to their calling.

Although the mass was at 14:00 and a wayward typhoon was threatening, the Church was full. As is common in Japan, but perhaps unthinkable in India and Christian countries, there were not only Cathoics but also non-Catholics at the ceremony. Non-Catholics in Japan can marry in Catholic Churches, and they eagerly attend Christmas masses, sometimes even waiting for an hour or two! In Japan, non-Catholics are allowed to join the procession of communicants and approach the altar, though they are told not to extend their palm to receive the host but to bow their head and receive the priest's blessings. So when his or her turn comes, a non-Catholic bows reverentially and the priest extends his hand and blesses the person, sometimes uttering words of encouragement.

We live in an age when the medium is often the message. Our world is used to the sound bite and the three minute song. Most of us don’t have time to listen to a complete Beethoven or Mozart symphony. Indeed, our lives are extremely busy. But what about the spiritual life and mission work? How are we supposed to reach people in our day and age when time seems to be at such a premium?

A couple of days ago, I was thinking about this same topic. As some of my readers know, I attend a small Jesuit college in the town where I live. It’s neither an extremely conservative school nor is it very liberal. In my very humble opinion, I would say that it is middle of the road. Therefore, I believe, some evangelization is necessary............The student center on campus used to be attended to by a Jesuit brother named Adam Weisgerber. Among the many things that he used to do on campus, he worked in the Student Life office of the university. In his spare time, he used to compile these leaflets and pamphlets. I think he may have collated some of them himself, cut them, and pasted them. Brother Adam passed away several years ago and, apparently, the leaflets had found themselves in their present location.

I suddenly realized that perhaps I should take these leaflets and start distributing them. Perhaps a couple in every campus building. It would make some sort of impact and it would definitely help the university’s Catholic identity. Indeed, pamphlets are the best way for us to reach out to others in our own time, when time is so limited.

The tremors of All Saints' Day, 1755, were felt around Europe in the most literal sense. Waters rose and fell in Scottish lochs; Morocco was pummelled; in Portugal itself, a tsunami swept away a quay and 50,000 people died, either under rubble or in fire, to say nothing of the children, whose already high mortality rate would have been increased by starvation and disease. To the pious sages of the time, God was saying something, but nobody could agree what. Was Lisbon the Age of Enlightenment's Sodom and Gomorrah? To Protestants, the city was too Roman Catholic; to the Catholics of Lisbon, the place was too Jesuit. And then there were the Optimists.

John Hayes, the son of Michael and Agnes Hayes (nee Lyons), 21 Ascot Terrace, O’Connell Avenue, Limerick was born on 15th February 1909. His early education by the Jesuits at The Crescent College in the city was to be an introduction to the priestly life. He joined the Jesuits at St. Stanislaus College, Tullabeg where he started his novitiate in 1925. From 1934 until 1936 he taught as a scholastic at Belvedere College, Dublin. In 1936 he went on to study theology at Milltown Park, Dublin where he was ordained priest in July 1939. He was engaged in further studies until June 1941.

In July 1941, he was appointed as a chaplain to the British Army and writing back from Redcar, Yorkshire he expressed his feelings about his new appointment ‘completely at home and experiences no sense of strangeness’. In 1943 he was selected for overseas service and in May of that year, set sail for India. On arrival there, he was assigned to the 36th Division at Poona. In early 1944, the Division moved to the Arakan front, where it was committed to help stop the Japanese advance; the fighting was hard; this was John Hayes’ introduction to active service. He was to prove an outstanding chaplain who was both loved and respected by all with whom he came in contact with; he was a man of tireless energy and indomitable courage.

On the 31st August 1944, John, in a letter home, wrote:

The 36th Division is now fighting the Japs about 30 miles south of the ‘city’ of Mogaung, about 22 odd miles from Mandalay, to the north. Having left cool Assam (where I was able to help administer to many American troops who greatly edified by large numbers frequenting the Sacraments) we flew over the hills to Myitkyina and went by jeep-pulled train to the ruins of Mogaung, captured just before by our allies, chiefly Chinese. The fight started about 12 miles south of Mogaung (Hill 60) which was cleared by one of our brigades and continued (though not toughly) over 20 miles to the south, our men clearing the road and rail which run mostly together in the direction of Mandalay. We were ‘on the road to Mandalay’ for our sins!

I missed the first phase but fortunately was in for the second phase of the battle. I attached myself to a Scotch Regiment and gave them Mass, Confession and Communion standing by a stream. We were in a long narrow plain between hills. Our Chinese allies hold the hills: we advance along the road and rail southwards in the valley. Occasionally the heat is oppressive, but heavy rains and scanty overhead shelter are the great difficulties. Sickness: malaria, dysentery, bad feet, jungle sores are common. (I’m completely fit D.G.). Last Monday, the 28th of August, I buried a Catholic, Corporal Kelly; he lay dead 30 paces from the railway; 10 yards away a Jap sat, his back to Kelly, dead, with his hand resting on his knees. While the grave was being prepared the moaning of a dying Jap was heard 40 paces away. I baptised him conditionally; he died 15 minutes later. I was so thoroughly affected by his sufferings that I could hardly carry out the burial of Corporal Kelly for tears.

A Chinese interpreter is showing interest in the Catholic Faith. Our casualties were reasonably light. The Jap has displayed great heroism in spite of our dive-bombers, strafing and heavy guns (to which he has no reply in kind). He has stood his ground with sublime courage. I feel somehow that God will reward his enormous spirit of self-dedication. I find it an inspiration myself. The effect of actual work during action is terrific.

One feels ready to sacrifice everything to save a single soul. So far God has given me the grace never to have felt fear on any occasion. No thanks to myself, for I know much better men who have felt fear. Largely, I think, a matter of natural complexion and texture of nerves.

This monsoon-swept valley between low hills is beautifully and softly green with running streams, but it is a valley of death; many bodies lie decomposing; the villages are all smashed, the people homeless, and God is looking down, I think, with pity on it all …….

It was during the hard fighting to capture Myitkyina, that Fr. Hayes was to earn the soubriquet of ‘Battling Hayes’. After Myitkyina, the Division pushed on to the Irrawaddy. It was on the banks of the great river that Fr. Hayes was to die, not from battle wounds but from disease.

On 28th December 1944 he was evacuated to the casualty clearing station at Katha where he was diagnosed as suffering from typhus. His condition got progressively worse, pneumonia set in. Fr. Hayes must have sensed that the end was near; he requested the last rites on 6th January 1945. John died on 21st January 1945 on the banks of the Irrawaddy just two months before the 14th Army decisively defeated the Japanese at Meiktila, on the road to Mandalay and Rangoon.

Several times in my life, people have asked me when I begin to be a Jesuit, why I am a Jesuit and why I wanted to be a Jesuit. Actually, I am not sure I have a good answer because I just feel called to be a Jesuit. Even in the beginning, my family, a very Catholic family in Colombia, did not understand my decision. I was studying in a Jesuit high school (like Seattle Prep or Gonzaga Prep) and Jesuits used to come to this school to talk with the students who might want to be Jesuits. The students who went to speak with the Jesuits did not have to go to classes and so it was fun for us to skip class. Many times I was in these meetings with the Jesuits, especially when I had mathematics and difficult quizzes, because first I did not want to be in these classes but later because I began to feel differently. I really wanted to be a Jesuit. At this time, I was 16 years old and I was a high school junior.

Colombian Jesuits have a special house named Manresa in Bogota for young men who think they have vocation. In this house, people who want to be a Jesuit live for some time and they think and pray about making a good decision. When I was a high school senior, I lived in Manresa and I came to know Jesuit history and other important things about the Society of Jesus. I was really coming to appreciate Jesuit history and also the justice projects that Jesuits were involved with in Colombia. Every weekend, I used to go to different parishes and I would meet many people. Really, I never thought about being a Jesuit but working with the people and I felt so happy in doing so that the result was that I wanted to be a Priest as soon as possible.

However, Jesuit formation is very long and though I have been in Jesuit formation nine years and still I have to study four or five years more. I think that is good because religious vocation is not a profession. The religious vocation is road that we are invited to travel our entire life.

The Murphy Code

A GU PROFESSOR’S SEARCH FOR THE HOLY GRAIL

Traviss Cassidy

It was a dark, rainy afternoon in Bamberg, Germany, but Fr. G. Ronald Murphy wasn’t about to let inclement weather thwart his quest. The Jesuit priest, a professor in Georgetown University’s German Department and scholar of medieval literature, was not looking for an obscure manuscript or a quiet refuge in which to spend his sabbatical. Rather, he was seeking the single object that has had the power to capture the imaginations of men and women for centuries, a relic which has inspired works of art ranging from the Arthurian legend and The Da Vinci Code to Indiana Jones and Monty Python. He was looking for the Holy Grail.

The prize, which Murphy believed to be held in Bamberg’s diocesan museum, wasn’t just any Grail—it was the object which, he believes, inspired Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Middle High German epic Parzival, which he dates to approximately 1210 AD. According to Wolfram’s tale, the Grail was not a serving dish or a chalice, as it has often been portrayed, but rather a green gemstone embedded in a portable Catholic altar. “But what is the Holy Grail?” Murphy asks in his book Gemstone of Paradise: The Holy Grail in Wolfram’s Parzival, published in 2006 by Oxford Press. A fine question indeed, considering the dozens—perhaps hundreds—of objects which faithful have claimed to be the one true Holy Grail over the years.

Widely considered the greatest Crusades historian in the world, Cambridge University professor Jonathan Riley-Smith identified the Grail in an email as “a creation of Chrétien de Troyes,” who wrote the original Arthurian myth on the subject of the mysterious relic.

Gary Krupp, who concludes that Pius XII"saved more Jews than all the other world leaders and religious leaders combined." Vatican Radio interviews the keeper of the archives of the late Father Robert Graham (1912-97), the Jesuit historian and defender of Pope Pius.

In a message to conference participants, Pope Benedict XVI called attention to the "vast quantity of documented material" showing the "organized assistance to the Jewish people" by "this noble Pope."

The New York Times (Thursday, June 28th) sited the Rev. Keith Pecklers, a Jesuit scholar at the Gregorian University in Rome as worrying that relations between Catholics and Jews may be harmed by the move.

He sites as an example the Good Friday mass, which includes a prayer for the conversion of the Jews. If this were in fact a true concern, Fr. Pecklers and those who agree with him should be the first to rejoice that motu proprio has come out. In a more complete way the rite will become part of the living tradition of the Church once again rather than a historical anomaly that we keep alive. The rite, now that it will have to be taken a bit more seriously, will become susceptible to natural evolution. We know this is true from when it was still the universal rite of the Latin Church. The Holy Week services changed quite a bit in the 1940s.

Pope John XXIII added, “We honor Joseph her husband” (sed et beati Joseph, eiusdem Viriginis Sponsi) to the canon of the mass. Now those parts of the mass that might be found objectionable to modern sensibilities might be more subject to change.

The charge in this article is also made that clergy will be overburdened, but that is in the paragraph just before it states, “there seems to be no widespread demand for it.” So which way is it guys?

Let’s be frank, most priests cannot even say the mass anymore. New churches are not designed for the rite and our grand old dames have often been so severely wreckovated that it would not even be possible to say the mass there anyway.

Follow the country road, through the gateway, to the Jesuit Retreat House on the shores of Lake Winnebago. Surrounded by rolling lawns and pathways through the trees,

you are invited to discover and deepen your relationship to God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, and to rediscover yourself through prayer, silence, reflection, and rest.

Although we are a Catholic retreat house in the Ignatian tradition, we welcome men and women of all faiths to our silent, conference retreats from Thursday evening until lunch on Sunday. A number of these retreats are designated for members of 12-Step recovery programs. During the summer our four-, five-, and eight-day directed retreats encourage an in-depth experience of God in our lives.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Fordham University’s Poets Out Loud series, which features readings by noted and emerging poets from around the country, launched its fall 2008 season on Sept. 15 with a reading by feminist poet and critic Alicia Ostriker.

Although known as one of the eminent poets of her generation, Ostriker told the audience that she was late in joining the feminist movement of the 1970s.

"I wanted to be a part of it, but I had children," she explained. "In that time, you either had babies or books, and I wanted both."

She added, "You don’t decide to become a feminist. If you do, you’re not a real one."

I am agnostic as regards heaven. I was raised a third-generation atheist socialist Jew. When my grandfather died, when I was nine, I prayed every night, “Dear God, in case you exist, please let my grandfather into heaven, even though he didn’t believe in you, because he was a good man.” But you can see that John Lennon has a point. Much more killing has been done by people who believed in heaven than by those who didn’t.

The same debate is already playing out almost every day in the letters section of Scranton’s newspaper, said Jean Harris, a political scientist at the Jesuit -run University of Scranton. “It is a running debate between Catholics saying ‘abortion is the only issue’ and others saying ‘you have to look at the whole teaching of the church,’” she said.Photo of the U of S campus

You will not find anything over at the vaunted America Magazine about St. Robert Bellarmine, S.J. even though he is a Doctor of the Church. So it is up to the Ignaciophiles to do the heavy lifting. This post was put together by St. Robert Bellarmine's number one fan John Michael

About Me

I am not a Jesuit, nor am I a cleric. I spent about 5 years under the spiritual direction of a Jesuit, 3 of those years in a weekly directed retreat in everyday life. The profound impact that the Society and the Excercises had upon my life, resulted in me, trying to deal with that impact in some way by sharing my view of Jesus Christ with others. My intention is to pull together Jesuitical and Catholic subjects that interest me. I was born on the feast day of St. Paul Miki, S.J.. I am the father of three small children and an infant, I am married to a great wife.